LIVE REVIEW: Katy Perry – Brisbane Entertainment Centre

Katy Perry has become one of those artists you wouldn’t want to mess with. She has more hits than you, looks better than you do, and let’s be honest she sings better than you do, and we love her for it. The Prismatic World Tour reached its 99th show while in Brisbane and with five shows in the city Katy showed no sign of slowing down. Opening with the mega hit “Roar” surrounded by neon cladded dancers the arena turned into hysterics with the arrival of the pop star. The first part of the show is best describe as a “neon prism rave” and she lives up to that with a glow in the dark skipping rope dance breakdown during “Roar”, lit up costumes that look epic during “Part Of Me” and she even takes to the skies on a prism platform to belt out a dub version of “Wide Awake”. “Brisbane for the next two hours we are going to be in the same room, breathing the same air, singing the same songs, are you ready?” exclaimed the excited songstress. With that she launched into a mashup of “This Moment” and “Love Me” which are two of the most underrated songs from “Prism”.

After a brief interlude “Dark Horse” kicked off the Egyptian portion of the show with Katy on top of a mechanical horse that went up and down the base of the stage. “ET” is a good song, but live it is an INCREDIBLE song. Her band bring this song to life enhanced with the flawless choreography and staging while she spins from a prismatic pyramid in the air to belt out the final high notes proving no lip synching was being done here. “Legendary Lovers” had very cool choreography but “I Kissed A Girl” impressed with hilarious mummy costumes that had inflatable boobs and butts parading the stage while the guitarists flew above with fireworks shooting from of the necks of their guitars.

The next segment of the show sees her love for cats showcased for the world to judge, love and agree. Appearing on stage on top of a giant ball of wool and dressed as a cat Katy gave an interesting and impressive jazz rendition of “Hot N Cold”. The rest of the stage was decked out with giant cat toys which saw her and the dancers play with during “International Smile”. She paraded up and down the catwalk to a cover of “Vogue” before pouring “milk” over her cat costume and disappearing from the stage.

People don’t give Katy Perry enough credit for how strong and powerful her vocals are. Yes, there are a few dodgy performance videos online that people will try argue with me over but once you see her live you are left with no doubt. Acoustically she is raw, vulnerable and every bit perfect. Serenading the crowd with “By The Grace Of God”, “The One That Got Away”, “Thinking Of You” and “Unconditionally” her vocals lead the crowd in some emotional sing-alongs. This section of the show also showed the crowd a cheeky and funny side of the singer with Kath And Kim references, cringing innuendos and selfie-ing with a few lucky fans.

Getting back into the fast lane she hovered over the crowd during “Walking On Air” and took to the air again with a giant blow up dress for one of my personal favourites “It Takes Two”. The party starts to really heat up with “This Is How We Do” and “Last Friday Night” getting the whole arena up on their feet while a bunch of inflatable emojis make their way around the arena. Katy struts her stuff around the stage joined by her attractive group of dancers with an inflatable car being test driven on the catwalk. “Teenage Dream” and “California Girls” got their respectable screams while “Birthday” turned out to be not so annoying with an energetic and fun performance that saw one lucky person getting serenaded to on top of a giant cake. Saying goodnight to the crowd she took a ride on her “big balloons” around the arena giving everyone a good up-close view before abandoning the stage. Returning for an encore performance of “Firework” enhanced by kaleidoscope glasses provided to you it’s safe to say the light show was impressive to say the least. With a firework display that puts Brisbanes Riverfire to shame she perfectly closed the show with bang.

There’s no surprise that Katy Perry has a massive underage following but the Under 10 crowd was a bit overwhelming. Luckily her Innuendos shoot over their heads and the show has been designed with them in mind. Vocally I couldn’t fault her, as a live performer she exceeded all expectations and took her live show to a whole new level. People talk about P!nk and Beyonce being the best entertainers of right now but I think they’ve finally me their match cause Katy Perry is slaying crowds one by one. She’s charismatic, fun, professional and an all-round killer performer that will have you smiling for 2 and a half hours nonstop. She’s grown as an artist since her last tour and takes everything to the next level with this highly over the top but perfect production. If there’s one show you need to attend this year, it needs to be The Prismatic World Tour.